help with carthage start

[ThrustVectoring]

I'm thinking of going up from prince to monarch and using carthage, just have some questions / brainstorming about how to go about this -

1. Map settings - what should I use? I'm thinking terra or hemispheres, and perhaps epic speed and a large map.

2. Early tech order. My general idea is to get a bunch of coastal cities early, and use great lighthouse + cothon + currency to stabilize my economy (works out to 5 trade routes per city, fairly easy to get 2 or 3 gold per TR too). I'm not sure how helpful cothon is though, the +1 trade route means 2-3 commerce over harbor.

3. Initial build order. Not sure exactly what is best - what I've been doing is rolling maps to force water resources in the start, and grabbing BW while pumping out fishing boats and growing to size 3 (and hopefully putting the anarchy to switch to slavery while moving the fishing boat 2 squares in the same turn). After that, its worker -> chop settler.

4. Early Aggro - should I try to take out cities early with carthage's UU? Numidian cavalry look fairly strong, not sure if its the best strat though... isn't it better to be more aggressive early on higher difficulty settings?

5. Economy style - specialist or cottage? Hannibal is financial so cottage is probably the way to go, but there's always the option of going unrestricted leaders and picking different traits.

 

[capnvonbaron]

My best score to date has been with Hannibal. The guy is a beast for conquer/domination victories because of all the money you can pour in to help military and tech, and the charismatic keeping people happy as well as making some beefy units. I personally don't like the GLighthouse route but thats just me, give it a try. I cottage the hell out of everything, especially riverside tiles, and mine everything else early on. If you can get some promoted NumidCav before your neighbors get more than archers/axemen you will destroy them.

 

[Draco Spirit]

Played him a fair bit on prince difficulty, he's certinly a good choice if you like to maintain a high level and well trained army... which means you want a nice sized group a city raiding 3 macemen to upgrade by the time you hit proper guns.

 

[noto2]

i find Hannibal a jack of all trades, meaning he is flexible and thus a powerful leader. He has a nice UU and CHA for early warfare expansion, and yet also has one of the strongest economic potentials in the game. CHA is actually a major boost to early game economy, plus he has FIN for a lasting boost, and the cothon to add to it. He can excel in many different situations. If you have room to grow, even by sea, do so and become the commercial leader. If you need to make room by way of the pointy stick, well he can do that too.

 

[Bleys]

Try the Hannibal Nobles Club game, I think that game showcases his most powerful style, the multi-island TRE with the GLH + Colossus combo. Its lethal, and achievable even up to Emperor level.

 

[AlienSexFilth]

Hannibal is a beast idd. But do not think about goin TGL w/o first watching the map.
Trade routes are very nice but they will never rival cottages or specialists or mines because they are not flexible enough (I can choose when I want to work 2 cottages or 1 mine & 1 farm)
Start the game, check the land arround. If you have room to expand peacefully, do so.
If you have HORSE and a dangerous civ near you, wipe him out of the face of the earth.
If you see a cluster of islands, THEN go TGL.
If you want to leverage Cothon & TGL, I suggest to play an archipelago map though..

 

[Shurdus]

Hannibal is a beast idd. But do not think about goin TGL w/o first watching the map.
Trade routes are very nice but they will never rival cottages or specialists or mines because they are not flexible enough (I can choose when I want to work 2 cottages or 1 mine & 1 farm)
Start the game, check the land arround. If you have room to expand peacefully, do so.
If you have HORSE and a dangerous civ near you, wipe him out of the face of the earth.
If you see a cluster of islands, THEN go TGL.
If you want to leverage Cothon & TGL, I suggest to play an archipelago map though..

If you see a cluster of islands and then you decide you want to go for TGL it is usually too late on emperor+. And I find trade routes very flecible indeed since they allow you to do whatever you please. The trade routes will make up maintenance costs, and in addition you can work cottages to make even more money. Comparing a trade route to a farm or a cottage is therefore comparing apples and oranges.

I agree however on the statement that at the very least you want to see the map before deciding one way or another.

 

[Fidardorist]

Would love to see this thread prosper. I too am stuck around Prince (and returning after long hiatus) and would love to see some pros come in and pass out some wisdom on a first shot at Prince-->Emperor.

Why don't you post a start and get some screenies going so we can drill down a bit? I'd be happy to help.

Saw a thread recently where several claimed it was one of the trickier level ups in the painful growth process.

 

[Meatbuster]

Heh heh, for me Noble->Prince->Monarch was nothing. But Monarch->Emperor? Hah.

Why don't we turn this into a Carthage open game thread or something...

Spoiler sample start, saves below :

Feel free to post by "checkpoints" like 1000BC, 1AD, liberalism and victory and all that stuff.

Note the water on the right side. Makes settling in place kinda less yummy.